Six Cycle Carousel
by Angelus1
Summary: Logan experiences the six stages of grief.
1. Shock

Title: Six Cycle Carousel (1/7: Shock)  
  
Author: Angelus  
  
E-mail: angelus1317@hotmail.com (Please put "Carousel" on the subject   
line.)  
  
Subject: Dark Angel  
  
Category: A, carachter death  
  
Rating: PG for a tiny little bit of language.  
  
Summary: Logan experiences the six stages of grief in an alternate ending to "And Jesus Brought A Casserole".  
  
Spoilers: "AJBAC"  
  
Archive: Anywhere, just ask first.  
  
Disclaimer: Max & Logan do not belong to me or any other fanfic writer out there. If they did, we'd be making it a better show rather than wasting our time writing up plots that will never happen, now would we?  
  
Author's notes: I just saw a list of the six stages of grief somewhere while on a Lifehouse overload, sat down at the computer, and this poured out. It's jusr basically the thoughts running through Logan's head right after he finds Max's body in the forest. Not much of a plot, but watch out for a large time leap between the third and fourth chapter, then again between the fifth and sixth. All of the chapters are very short, and make the most sense when you read them all at once, one right after another. Enjoy the 'fic, and buy the Lifehouse CD.   
  
Dedication: To Mari. I can't believe I haven't dedicated a 'fic to you yet!! I can't wait until we start our video. Lots of Matt fun! And remind me again how we're planning on putting '17 Macintosh Apples' together again? American Pie eat your heart out. *This* will be the smut movie of the year. Yeah, Matt! And Jason, we're counting on you: "If you were really my friend, you'd strip and make out with another guy!"  
  
**********************************************************************  
  
"I haven't been alone with a man in my bedroom since I spounge-bathed my uncle." -Saturday Night Live.   
  
**********************************************************************  
  
Oh, God. This can't be happening.   
  
But it is. I'm sitting on the ground in a forest somewhere outside of Manticore, with Max's limp, bloody body resting in my lap. As much as I want to believe that she'll make it; that she'll survive somehow; I can't ignore the fact that she's not breathing and I can't get a pulse.  
  
All I can think of is that it shouldn't be happening this way. If Max is to die, it should be quick and painless, and while she's surrounded by her friends and siblings that love her unconditionally.  
  
Not that it's possible to love her any other way. It's very hard to recieve love from Max, but it's not hard to fall in love with her in any way. Much as she tries not to, she just has this endearing quality about her that I, for one, couldn't resist, and couldn't help but be attracted to. Even at her maddest, she's just so damn cute that I have to contain the urge to smile at her in the midst of any argument.  
  
Will I ever be able to smile at her again? She certainly doesn't look cute now. Her skin is pale and waxy, washed out to an unusual, unnatural, sickly shade of gray in the moonlight that beams down upon us. Not at all like the bright, vibrant young woman that I once loved.  
  
*Love*. I still don't know if she's gone or not. There's still that little glimmer of hope. Oh, God, I never told her. She's never heard it from my lips just how much I care about her. In this moment, I realize that there are a million things that I wanted to say to my dark angel that I may never get the chance to say.  
  
I wanted to tell her how beautiful I think she is; that she made my life complete; that she's not just my personal cat burglar; that she means more to me than just a pair of legs; that she's the only woman to have made me feel like a man again since the accident; how much I appreciate that she never pitied me while I was in the chair; how much I also appreciate it that she always treats me the same, wheelchair or no wheelchair; how mind-blowing it is when she kisses me. But most of all, I wanted to tell her that I fell in love with her the day she crashed through my skylight like an angel falling from heaven to save me from my own lonliness.  
  
Oh, God. This can't be happening.  
  
Can it? 


	2. Denial

Six Cycle Carousel (2/7: Denial)  
Angelus   
See first chapter for disclaimer, etc.  
  
~*~  
  
No, of course not. This is silly. Why the hell am I sitting here in the middle of the forest? I should be at home, and home isn't here. Home is far away from here, in fact. Home is in Seattle. Home is where Max is.  
  
Yes, Max is at home. This is obviously not her frail, lifeless body in front of me; not her head resting in my lap with dirty, matted-down hair and glazed-over eyes. This has to be one of those funky X-7 clone things. I mean...c'mon, it doesn't even look like her!  
  
Plus like I said, my Max is back at my place in Seattle. In fact, it's *our* place now, because she really is *my* Max. She's eating in my kitchen, sitting on my couch, showering in my bathroom, sleeping in my bed, and waiting patiently for me to come home to her.  
  
She *is* that bright, vibrant girl that I'm in love with. Her cheeks are pink with energy, her mouth large and red and begging to be kissed. Her eyes sparkle like exquisite, coffee-brown diamonds, and her hair of the same color tumbles down her back in a cascading waterfall of curls, spilling past her shoulders all the way down past her rear. And her body...that lush body that's all mine is displayed to its fullest in the flimsy, feminine fabrics that she drapes over herself daily.   
  
She's the perfect girlfriend. No - the perfect wife. And mother. I can just see her now; see her flat, muscular stomach swollen with *my* child. My seed. I can see her playing with our son - an adorable young boy with Max's hair and my eyes. I can see numerous other healthy, barcode-free children. Grandchildren, even. I can see us growing old together; always together. Holding one another close every night until we can hold one another no more. Until...death.  
  
Suddenly, it all comes rushing back to me: the bullet...the blood...the body...The dead body. Max is dead.  
  
And all I can do is cry until there are no more tears left to cry. 


	3. Guilt

Title: Six Cycle Carousel (3/7)  
Author: Angelus  
See first chapter for disclaimer, etc.  
  
~*~  
  
Yes, Max is dead. She's dead and it's all my fault.  
  
I should've gone in looking for her earlier. In fact, I never should've let her go by herself in the first place. I should've gone with her and left Zack or Krit or Syl to play babysitter to Lydecker.  
  
I should have seen this coming miles away. If anything, Max got more reckless after she met me. Almost as if she had something to prove. Not that she did, of course. I'd love her if she was as helpless as I was in the chair. I should have told her that when I had the chance. I should've told her all those things that I was too chicken to say. Because, thanks to me, I'll never have another chance.  
  
I like to think that I played somewhat of an important role in reuniting Max with her siblings. And getting them all back together was good in ways based solely on an emotional level. But as far as the threat they pose to society...I'm definetely not taking any credit there.  
  
I guess I don't really believe that they would have done anything that would have been harmful to citizens. In fact, they might not have done much of anything. Zack probably would've suggested it, but the others would've overruled him due to lack of equipment and supplies. They're not stupid - they know that taking down Manticore is essentially a suicide mission.  
  
I also like to believe that I helped conceive the plan to obliterate Manticore. I think Max was feeding off of my logic when she suggested just taking out the DNA labs. When I first met her, there's no way in hell she would've thought it through like that. In my own private little fantasy world, I imagine that I've had as much of an impact on her life as she has had on mine.  
  
And so she used some logic when she mapped out the attack, whether she got that logic from me, from Zack, or from God knows where. The important thing os that that logic flew right out the window when she got inside. As soon as she saw Brynn and those X-7's, she threw caution to the wind. A smart person would not have wasted time to do things like engaging in a pointless argument with a brainwashed Brynn, or plead with an X-7 clone. But Max, much of a hard-ass as she'd like people to think she is, has a secret. On the inside, she's as soft and vulnerable as a newborn kitten.  
  
And it's my fault. She's gotten softer since we met. I should've seen it coming; I should've known. But instead of worrying about her well-being, here I was trying to win her over with fancy dinners, expensive presents, generous gertures, constant flirting, and over-the-top compliments. But where has all of that gotten me? What good has it done?  
  
Goddammitt all to hell. 


	4. Anger

Six Cycle Carousel (4/7: Anger)  
Angelus   
See first chapter for disclaimer, etc.  
  
~*~  
  
Damn her.   
  
How could she do this to me? How could she leave me like this? Just last night she said that I was as much her family as Krit and Syl and Zack. So isn't family supposed to mean something special? Families don't just abandon one another.  
  
We've been in danger before. Like when I almost died in the hospital after my surgery. Yeah, Max saved me, but I never gave up hope. I hung on just for her. We formed a special connection that day; a bond, in the dream we shared. And I knew from that very moment that there was no way I was letting her out of my life. No matter what, I would be there for her.  
  
Didn't she feel the barest hint of something like that for me? Did she even fight at all?   
  
The one thing about Max that aggravated me the most was that she was so untrusting. I was honored that she trusted me enough to confide in me, but there were still things that she kept hidden. I wasn't completely open, of course, but I think I was fairly obvious about my feelings for her.  
  
It saddens me to know that we'll never get a chance to have a go at a relationship. I'd rather try and fail than never be able to try at all. Didn't she want the same things? She did kiss me, after all. Twice. And it felt as if there was something there, some part of her, that longed for the stability of a serious relationship; the ability to lean on someone else and have them be there for you always. Did that mean so little to her that she would be careless enough to get herself shot? Did *I* mean so little to her? How could she leave me so alone?  
  
And how am I going to survive without her? 


	5. Fear

Six Cycle Carousel (5/7: Fear)  
Angelus   
See first chapter for disclaimer, etc.  
  
~*~  
  
The first time that Max left me, I wasn't sure if she was coming back or not. I had only known her a few short months at the time, but that didn't lessen the pain, because I had already fallen so completely in love with her. In the time that we had had together, this brilliant, beautiful creature had become my best friend and confidante; a constant that I could fall back on, as I'd like to think that I became to her. Then suddenly, she was being ripped out of my life by the brother she had spent so many years searching for - the brother who loved her just as much as I did, and with exactly the same kind of love. Under the circumstances, I was ready to just let her go quietly; without a fight. After all, who was I to be challenging anyone, let alone her brother? How could a crippled, spoiled rich kid ever possibly hope to compete with someone like Zack, who could match Max stride-for-stride, who could protect her from danger - who could walk, for God's sake. In my eyes, I just didn't measure up.  
  
Which was why I was caught completely off guard when she reached through the window of my Aztec and kissed my firmly on the lips. It was a pleasant surprise, of course - very pleasant. If I close my eyes right now and block out all the chaos around me, I can still feel her mouth on mine - I remember that she tasted distinctly of cherries. It instilled a sadness at losing her that nearly brought tears to my eyes while it made my toes tingle from the intensity. But above all, it planted somewhere deep inside of me a tiny glimmer of hope - a hope that she felt for me all the feelings that I harbored for her. But there was no time to explore the possibilities, because it was not the kiss of a new beginning - it was the kiss of an ending to a life that never was in the first place.  
  
I honestly don't know what I would have done past moping around the house that first day if she hadn't come back. And what a fitting way, too - she appeared out of nowhere in perfect time to save my ass - my very own gaurdian angel with her tarnished armor, kick-ass attitude, and shiteating grin. Typical. What would I have done without her?  
  
What will I do without her now?  
  
And while I pretend to ponder that question, I'm really just avoiding the answer I know to be true. Without my strong, loyal soldier by my side...  
  
I'll die. 


	6. Acceptance

Six Cycle Carousel (6/7: Acceptance)  
Angelus   
See first chapter for disclaimer, etc.  
  
Author's Notes: Complete change of pace here - this idea just kinda came to me out of the blue - call it spur-of-the-moment creative genius. Hope you like it.  
  
~*~  
  
March 22, 2032  
  
It was a cold, blustery day - not exactly a rarity in Seattle. Most people were in their houses, bundled up with their loved ones, for it was a weekend. Even those without homes in the worst areas of the city had managed to find shelter. But in Sector 6, the high-rise district, a lone figure exited Fogle Towers wrapped in a long, black wool trench coat and turned onto the sidewalk that led past a small shopping center.  
  
Stores that could afford to be were closed, but many remained open in spite of the weather, hoping for visits for people like this man that had things to do so important that they couldn't wait until tomorrow. The man only had to walk a few hundred feet into the area before spotting exactly what he was looking for: a florist. He stepped inside, scanned the arrangements on display, and finally selected a beautiful bouquet of daisies, white lilies, baby's breath, and white roses. After paying for his purchase, the man exited the store and continued on the same sidewalk, the flowers tucked under one arm to shelter them from the wind. Soon, he reached his second destination: the cemetery.  
  
The cemetery in itself was unremarkable. A select few wealthy families had purchased mausoleums for deceased relatives, but the grass-covered area of ground was mainly covered with small, nondescript headstones. This was not a place to bury large families that wished to be together even in death, nor was it a place to bury deeply-mourned losses. No, this was a place to bury those that had no other place to go.  
  
In the midst of hundreds of nearly-identical marble groundmarkers, the man in black seemed to know exactly where he was headed. He knelt beside one particular grave and set down the flowers. The bright, blindingly white petals stood out in stark contrast to the myriad of muted earth tones like brown, gray, and dirty green that were Seattle in the last, late vestiges of winter.  
  
As the stranger carefully lay the bouquet on the ground, his coat rode up around his arms, revealing two thin, pale wrists lashed with scars. To even the casual observer, it was obvious that these scars had come from a knife, and a clumsily-wielded one at that. Time had dissipated the blatantly obvious visibility of the scars, but there were traces of them that would probably remain until this man died. He didn't mind, though - it helped him to remember; to remember her.  
  
He pulled his coat more tightly around his body as he squatted to rest next to the burial spot, the icy wind whipping strands of light brown hair over his glasses and into his eyes. He sat in thoughtful silence for close to an hour, an expression of sadness and quiet contemplation on his face all the while. Before getting up to leave, he pressed a kiss to his index and middle finger, then gently transferred it to the headstone.  
  
"I love you, Max," he whispered, his voice strained.  
  
He turned and left.  
  
As he strode down the very same street he had taken to get himself to the cemetery, his hands free of the burden of the flower arrangement, he lightly traced the scars on the insides of his wrists.  
  
And he smiled.  
  
There had been a time in his life when suicide had seemed the only option. And once the choice was made, he suddenly had many options, for cutting himself was not the first way he had tried, and he bore marks from nearly all of his attempts. He had fractured a bone in his neck while trying to hang himself; a burn mark remained on the back of his thigh from when he had set his apartment on fire; he had slipped on the wet tile of the bathroom floor and cut open his head when he had drugged himself, and a scar remained. But those were only a few, for this had gone on for close to a year.  
  
But then, he had seen a light. In his mind's eye, while he slept, a woman had come to him. This woman was the closest thing to perfection in the man's mind, for she was a combination of the love he had lost, his mother, and his imagination's image of the Virgin Mary from when he was smaller and attended Sunday mass with his family every week. All it had taken was one serene smile from this beautiful, mysterious stranger for him to realize that everything would be allright. And, true to her wordless promise, it had been.  
  
After all - he was living, wasn't he?  
  
~*~  
  
White slowly turned to brown, and the edges of the petals began to curl up and die. But no sooner had they become wilted beyond recognition were they replaced by a fresh batch by one of the many visitors to the small grave that was never left without a physical sign of the respect and love that one woman had instilled in the heats of more people than she ever would or could realize:  
  
MAX GUEVARA  
  
2000-2019  
  
THE ONLY TEENAGER IN THIS CITY TO PUT FAMILY ABOVE ALL ELSE.  
SHE DIED WITH HONOR, BUT LIVES ON IN OUR HEARTS FOREVER. 


	7. Sick Cycle Carousel

Six Cycle Carousel (7/7: Sick Cycle Carousel)  
Angelus   
See first chapter for disclaimer, etc.  
  
Author's Notes: Contrary to popular belief, I am quite aware of the song's proper title, as Lifehouse is one of my favorite bands, and it was my plan to post the lyrics as the seventh chapter from the beginning, so here they are.  
  
~*~  
  
If shame had a face, I think it would kinda look like mine.  
If it had a home, would it be me eyes?  
Would you believe me if I said I'm tired of this?  
Well here we go now, one more time.  
  
'Cuz I tried to climb your steps  
I tried to chase you down  
I tried to see how   
Low I could get down to the ground and  
I tried to earn my way   
I tried to tame this mind  
You better believe that I am   
Trying to beat this.  
  
So when will this end?  
It goes on and on.  
Over and over and over again.  
Keep spinnin' around, I know that it won't stop  
'Till I step down   
From this for good.  
  
I never thought I'd end up here; never  
Thought I'd be standin' where I am.  
I guess I kinda thought that it would be easier than this.  
I guess I was wrong, now, one more time.  
  
'Cuz I tried to climb your steps  
I tried to chase you down  
I tried to see how   
Low I could get down to the ground and  
I tried to earn my way   
I tried to tame this mind  
You better believe that I am   
Trying to beat this.  
  
So when will this end?  
It goes on and on.  
Over and over and over again.  
Keep spinnin' around, I know that it won't stop  
'Till I step down   
From this   
  
Sick cycle carousel, this is a  
Sick cycle, yeah  
Sick cycle carousel, this is a  
Sick cycle, yeah  
Ahh-ahh  
  
So when will this end?  
It goes on and on.  
Over and over and over again.  
Keep spinnin' around, I know that it won't stop  
'Till I step down   
From this for good.  
  
So when will this end?  
It goes on and on.  
Over and over and over again.  
Keep spinnin' around, I know that it won't stop  
'Till I step down   
From this for good.  
  
Sick cycle carousel, sick cycle carousel  
Sick cycle carousel, sick cycle carousel...  
  
(Fade)  
  
~*~  
  
Secondary Author's Notes: Oh my God, I'm FINALLY finished! I'm really sorry that it took me this long, and I hope to get back on track with one fic a week. Life is just too damn busy to get any real work done. Thanks for sticking with me on this one, and thanks to everybody who sent such sweet reviews. Love you all! 


End file.
